Rockland Industries fined $26,000 by State

Rockland Industries has been fined $26,660 by the state for failing to meet deadlines to clean up a hazardous waste site at 255 Plymouth St.

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By Alice ElwellEnterprise Correspondent

The Enterprise, Brockton, MA

By Alice ElwellEnterprise Correspondent

Posted May. 7, 2014 at 6:00 AM

By Alice ElwellEnterprise Correspondent

Posted May. 7, 2014 at 6:00 AM

» Social News

MIDDLEBORO – Rockland Industries has been fined $26,660 by the state for failing to meet deadlines to clean up a hazardous waste site at 255 Plymouth St.

The fine was issued by the Department of Environmental Protection.

“We are appealing the fine,” said Michael Striar, who oversees the cleanup of the family-owned property, a 70-acre site officially designated a hazardous waste site in 1985.

The site, in 2000, also received a "Dirty Dozen Award" by the state’s Toxic Action Center.

Striar declined to comment further on the fine because it is under appeal.

More than 800 people live within a one-mile radius of the property, where chlorinated benzene, a cancer-causing chemical, was found in one-inch thick layers in some areas.

The town has been battling the pollution since 1968 when officials told Striar to stop dumping chemicals in a man-made lagoon that leached into the soil.

The property, a farmland in the early 1950s, was developed that decade by the late Daniel E. Striar, who manufactured chemicals there from 1962 to 1982. Striar never disclosed exactly what was produced at the plant, because he held classified government contracts, officials said.

By 2012, the cleanup was taking too long and the state DEP hired a firm to remove 200 cubic yards of contaminated soil at the Striar’s expense of over $150,000.

Michael Striar, son of Daniel Striar, said his family has paid out more than $2 million to clean up the property, and dismisses fears they’d turn their backs on the cleanup.

“We absolutely could have walked away from this site many times over the years. We never have and never will,” said Striar. “There are no plans to reuse the site, other than to finish cleaning it up.”

Joseph Ferson, spokesperson for the DEP, said the agency found Rockland Industries in noncompliance in September when the closeout plan for the hazardous waste site was invalidated.

Ferson said the agency has determine the contamination has been fully contained and is no longer leaching off the site. HE said the DEP requires the closeout plan includes additional testing, monitoring and an ecological risk assessment.